> Take a look at the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans. About half the people on the list are entrepreneurs whose companies did very well (thanks to hard work as well as a lot of luck). Contrary to Piketty’s rentier hypothesis, I don’t see anyone on the list whose ancestors bought a great parcel of land in 1780 and have been accumulating family wealth by collecting rents ever since. In America, that old money is long gone—through instability, inflation, taxes, philanthropy, and spending.
The USA are somewhat of an edge case here due to their youth. Look at older countries, such as France (where Piketty and I are from) and you'll see a marked difference.
Maybe these "older countries" should try --for a century or two-- laissez-faire capitalism and a government limited to the protection of individual rights.
> Maybe these "older countries" should try --for a century
> or two-- laissez-faire capitalism and a government
> limited to the protection of individual rights
I used to work at an 800 year old pub. American tourists would helpfully come along and tell us we'd gotten the location all wrong.
It would probably make more of a difference if they tried for a century or two expanding into a sparsely populated, resource-dense area many times their current size.
Why would someone want to limit government to protecting individual rights? This doesn't make sense at all. Is the minting of money protecting some sort of individual right? What about providing healthcare for the destitute? Are roads some sort of individual right?
Could it be that some people subscribe to the theory of the proper role and structure of government evinced by the Declaration of Independence?
Maybe some are fond of John Locke's Second Treatise of Government? of rights as an inalienable attribute of the ultimate minority, the individual? and of a government limited in purpose and scope so that it protects us, nothing more?
The USA are somewhat of an edge case here due to their youth. Look at older countries, such as France (where Piketty and I are from) and you'll see a marked difference.